


hopefully, probably, absolutely

by bio_at



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Black Lion is the actual dad of team Voltron, Gen, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Red Lion teases Keith: a fic, male pronouns for genderfluid Pidge, really just shenanigans with Red Lion, responsible pining if thats a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 16:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11490381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bio_at/pseuds/bio_at
Summary: And in that moment, Keith understands with ringing clarity how cat owners feel when their cats look them dead in the eye before knocking expensive breakables off high shelves.“Don’t,” Keith whispers.Red ignores him.--or, red lion finds out about keith's feelings, and proceeds to wreak havoc. set after S02E01.





	hopefully, probably, absolutely

**Author's Note:**

> i see your motherly lion headcanons and raise you: actual jerkass housecat lions.

**i. prologue**

In the ten thousand years that Allura and Coran slept the years away in their cryogenic pods, the Lions of Voltron had spent it alone.

They were built to be functional on their own, but it was still unsettling to each Lion when King Alfor had decreed that it was better for everyone if they were separated. They had understood, but they had grieved, as Allura had—and in the end they had no choice but to concede.

Now the new Paladins of Voltron had almost literally crash-landed into them and brought them together once more. The Lions reveled in each other’s, and Allura’s, presence, happiness overflowing from Allura in droves. This is only slightly muted by the imminent threat of conquest by Zarkon—but that’s been their day job since they were manufactured, so what else is new.

They don’t spend all their time in combat, however, regularly docking back at the Castle of Lions so they and their Paladins could rest. The Lions revel being back in their own hangar, especially Red, who had spent the past ten thousand years in a Galran hangar, steadfastly ignoring all the beings that Zarkon offered as its Paladin. They spend the downtime deep in their communal meld, quiet and meditative, sharing memories of their fights, their Paladins.

Red meditates on Green Lion’s dim memory of watching its Paladin—Pidge, Green says, and of tiny puffballs that flitted around him on the planet. Meanwhile, Black’s memory shifts to the feeling of a different Paladin in its cockpit, his commands not translating quite as smoothly as they always had with its own Paladin. This Paladin was more forceful, more reckless with his commands, used to a faster, more agile Lion—

Red is drawn towards the memory of its Paladin like a plant towards sunlight. _He piloted you?_ Red breaches the quiet to ask of the Black Lion. _I didn’t know that._

 _Yes,_ Black replies matter-of-factly, breaking off from the communal mind-meld. Red feels the other three Lions shift slightly, but Black Lion simply sends them a wave of assurance. _Only for a short while. You were incapacitated, and my Paladin needed help._

 _Keith had not mentioned it,_ Red muses. _I wonder why._

 _Your Paladin has the right to secrets,_ Black reminds it, already turning back to the meld.

Red makes the executive decision not to respond, and sinks back into silence.

 

 

 **ii.** **hopefully**

Keith wakes up with his heart attempting to beat out of his chest.

He’s always been a largely dreamless person—Keith is a light sleeper by necessity, having lived in a desert shack that had no security system to speak of for one whole year. But now he sits up in bed, trying to sort through the whirlwind of a dream he’d just had.

It had felt too structured, too specific to be a dream. Dreams made no sense—and this was too close to a memory, of an actual thing that happened, but with some… _key_ differences.

_“Good.” Shiro stands over him, with a smile brighter than the sun, having knocked him down after a spar, offering his hand to help Keith up. “You’re still favoring your right side, but at least your movements have become more balanced.”_

_Keith takes the proffered hand, pulling himself to a standing position. He barely sees Shiro smirk before he uses Keith’s momentum to pull him further forward to his chest, his other arm wrapping around Keith’s shoulders, his laughter warm against Keith’s cheek—_

“That’s enough of that,” Keith murmurs out loud to the quiet room, pointedly ignoring the burning in his cheeks.

That spar _had_ happened, a few days ago. But it hadn’t— _ended_ —like that. Keith had pulled himself up and walked away to get water, Shiro following behind him, the two of them making idle conversation before breaking off to go to their own rooms. It wasn’t unusual—each of the Paladins had their own training regime outside of the mandatory group ones, and they helped each other when those individual schedules happened to overlap.

(Or, in Keith and Lance’s case, trying to outdo each other so enthusiastically that Pidge had walked into the gym, took one look at Lance trying to bench press twice his own weight while Keith refused to spot, turned right back around, and yelled for Shiro.)

But that doesn’t explain that specific memory suddenly resurfacing in a dream. Sure, he had replayed the sense memory of sparring hand-to-hand with Shiro (once again ignoring his goddamn cheeks) but not so much to make it reappear… right?

He shakes off the thought as he picks up his jacket and heads out for breakfast.

\--

“—like the ones in video games!” Pidge is saying as Keith walks into the dining hall. “If I’m being honest, I’m kind of surprised this isn’t a default thing in the Lions.”

“Well, we’ve always relied on the mind-meld for everyone to know where everyone else is,” Allura says, as Keith sinks into the seat next to her. “Hi, Keith. The Paladins have always had enough training to be able to keep track of each other without needing an indicator on their helmets. But it’s an idea worth considering. Also, what are video games?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Shiro interjects, as Pidge literally vibrates with the excitement of one who was ready to explain the entire history and concept of gaming to an alien. “It’s instinctive and simple, and it’ll really help for maneuverability when we’re not Voltron and we’re still working on the meld.”

“We’ll have to consider the three-dimensional nature of our fighting,” Hunk says, as Allura looks slightly alarmed at Pidge’s reaction to her innocent question. “Should be an interesting design problem when we make the heads-up. Oh, oh! And different icons for Lions and Paladins, and another one for when a Paladin is in a Lion—”

“And it should automatically disappear when we form Voltron,” Keith adds.

“Already thinking code, I see,” Pidge says with approval, momentarily forgetting about Allura’s question.

That is, until Lance snidely asks, “Which game should we base the HUD off of?”, and Pidge goes right back to video game mode, pouncing on the question and rattling off classic favorites to choose from while Hunk nods and nods.

Keith turns back to his breakfast, letting the conversation wash over him. To be melded properly with his team that they didn’t need a heads-up on their helmets to tell where the others were—that had been the standard for Voltron teams; until theirs, anyway.

He’ll never say it out loud to any of them, but he’s grown strangely okay with the fact that eventually, they’ll be so attuned to each other’s thoughts to encompass basic vocal communication. And he won’t care for Lance’s nagging or Hunk’s 24/7 stream of longing for Earth food, but at least there’ll be Shiro’s constant undercurrent of what he assumes are puns and dad jokes.

Out of the corner of his eye, Keith sees Shiro raise a glass to his lips, smiling fondly as he watches the rest of their team chat and bicker. Keith blushes and slouches in his seat, unpleasantly reminded of how he had woken up earlier.

Their communal meld was too weak, too young to keep track of each other while in combat, much less influence his dreams so directly. Moreover, they still heavily relied on the headgear that formed part of their helmets to amplify their connection to each other, and Keith’s pretty sure he didn’t wear that to sleep last night. Lacking a better culprit, Keith ponders some more on this theory.

The next logical step would be someone, or something, that was mentally bound to him, even without the helmet.

Keith sits up straighter in his chair with the realization, causing Allura to glance curiously at him. He manages a small, sheepish smile, biting his lip, and Allura leaves him be.

\--

Keith walks into Red Lion’s hangar later that afternoon, once everyone’s broken off after team training. He says nothing as he looks up at the robot, magnificent and immobile, just as he’d left it.

It occurs to him then that he doesn’t know how to start this conversation, so he decides to stall by walking over to its right paw. He reaches out a hand to touch the cold metal, and he feels the Red Lion’s consciousness awaken and press against his, much like a purring cat settling to drape itself across his shoulders.

“Hey, kitty.” He grins up at the machine, which gives no response. After a moment of hesitation, he climbs up and sits on Red’s paw, his legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back against its leg. “Hm.”

He sinks into quiet contemplation as Red waits with polite curiosity, and wonders how to begin. On one hand, he could just directly confront the topic and have Red admit it was its doing; on the other hand, Red might not know what the heck he’s talking about and—be so embarrassed of his “ace pilot” Paladin’s dumbass crush, causing it to refuse to be his Lion anymore and making the team unable to form Voltron and leaving the universe to the mercy of the Galra.

Red seems to bristle at the panic in his psyche; he takes a deep breath to calm himself down.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “It’s nothing serious. I mean, well—” Keith just ignores wherever that sentence was going, and starts over. “Look. I had, I kind of had a weird dream? And I was wondering if…” _you know about my hopeless crush on Shiro,_ “—if you knew anything about it?”

Red Lion does not react. There’s nothing but strained silence in the hangar for a few moments—and right as Keith begins to think he may have been mistaken, he feels–smugness? The smallest hint of smugness, thick in the air, as though it was oozing from every crevice of his Lion. Keith sits up, surprised at the potency of the emotion. If he were less flustered, he’d appreciate how the contact seems to amplify his bond with Red, but as it is, he groans in frustration.

“So it _was_ you!” Keith raps his knuckles against the cold metal, like that’s gonna do anything. A part of him is glad that he’s found the culprit, to know that his brain _hasn’t_ randomly decided to fixate on his feelings for Shiro; while the other part is downright horrified that another sentient being in the universe is aware of aforementioned stupid feelings. “Okay, Red, it was _mildly_ funny that time, but you gotta knock it off.”

The cat-feeling around his neck curls and undulates against him, and the feeling reminds him of a toddler whining about being denied playtime.

“ _Knock it off,_ ” Keith repeats firmly. He crosses his arms, only now realizing that he’s arguing about his feelings with a giant robotic sentient space weapon of mass destruction. What has his life become.

It’s ridiculous enough before a memory is pulled to the forefront of his mind: a memory of peace, a different one from the dream. This time it’s one of the Paladins lounging around the communal room, and as Shiro idly stretches while talking to Lance, the back of Shiro’s shirt rides up and exposes a narrow sliver of skin above his hips. And this time it’s unedited footage, so to speak, and Keith’s own feelings from that moment resurface with embarrassing clarity for him, and Red, to relive.

“ _God fucking damn it, Red!_ ”

“Dang, Keith, what’d Red ever do to you?”

Keith’s head whips around to see Pidge, standing beside the workshop table, keenly aware that his face is probably still as red as his Lion. Did he miss the sound of the hangar door opening? “Nothing,” he says, a touch too quickly, pointedly ignoring the undercurrent of Red’s smugness that thrums through him. He runs his hand through his hair, hoping the gesture looked cool and aloof instead of frazzled. “Did you need something?”

“Dinner’s ready,” Pidge says, still eyeing him skeptically. “And I was going to get your helmet, I’ve got to test the code for that positioning HUD tonight.”

“Yeah, take it, it’s right there on the workbench,” Keith carefully climbs down from Red’s paw, giving it a quick pat before jogging over to where Pidge is waiting for him, looking between him and Red. Thankfully, Pidge doesn’t press, and turns to the door with Keith in tow, Keith’s helmet tucked safely under his arm.

“We’re gonna take the new software out for a spin tomorrow,” Pidge continues as they head out. “I’ll be installing the software in the Lions tonight.”

“Sounds good,” Keith offers. He checks to make sure Pidge isn’t looking, then turns back and squints at Red. _I’m watching you,_ he thinks at it.

He gets only a low, contented purring as the door slides closed.

\--

For software testing the next day, they decide to land on a mostly uninhabited planet, save for a few small villages that Allura and Coran plan to scout for supplies. They park the Castle of Lions a few kilometers west of the villages, in a rocky plain made of jagged blue-gray boulders bordered by mile-high cliffs. It makes the perfect cover for the Castle, and an even better training ground for the Lions.

“Simple maneuvers to begin with,” Shiro says over the intercom, as they’re running the Lions away from the Castle. “Stay on the same level, let’s get used to the 2D aspect of this first.”

Keith eyes the Black Lion icon, hovering to his left and ahead of him. The HUD Pidge had designed isn’t quite like the first person shooter-style waypoint markers he’d been expecting—there were arrows, but instead of moving around the edges of the screen in a circle, the arrows were three-dimensional and seemed to be suspended in a tiny globe at the bottom of the default HUD, making their relative 3D position easily apparent. It was a minor addition, and still very much in development, but Keith already ached to push its limits since the moment he’d set eyes on it.

But like a good team player, he follows as Shiro directs the team through a series of basic formations while all of them get used to the globe. Red runs like a dream, and despite himself, Keith can’t help but laugh quietly as it shares the sense memory of the wind running past its armor.

“Good to be out, isn’t it?” Shiro asks, a smile in his voice, and Keith realizes he might’ve laughed louder than he thought; he shuts up immediately.

“Red’s having a good time,” he explains; Shiro hums in agreement. He’s unable to see his Lion’s face, but he has the distinct sensation that his Lion is smirking at him.

And just like that, without further warning, Red breaks off from formation, and Keith feels it accelerate to a speed he’s only felt when he was fighting Zarkon. In a life-and-death scenario, it had been justified. But in training… “Red,” Keith warns. “ _What_ are you doing?”

“Uh, Keith?” Lance’s voice filters through to him. “That’s not where you’re supposed to go.”

“I know that,” Keith says through gritted teeth, pulling at controls and levers. The Alteans had never considered a Lion going rogue against its Paladin, apparently, with no built-in override. He is going to go down in history as the first and probably only Paladin to be murdered by his Lion for being too chicken to own up to his feelings.

But Red’s intentions don’t seem to be murder. Not yet, anyway, as it expertly navigates a steep incline lined with boulders. _Trust me_ , Red seems to say, pouncing on rock after rock of unstable-looking ground, leaving Keith with little more to do than cling to the pilot seat for his life.

“I don’t know what Red Lion’s up to, but this is giving us great data for the HUD,” Pidge says happily, and Keith can hear him tapping away furiously on his tablet. “Ohh, the arrow’s starting to bug out—at what looks like 40, 45 degrees up from the normal—”

Keith zones out for the rest of Hunk and Pidge talking through what he assumes is improvements and debugging for version two. He focuses instead on where Red is going: for all he could see, it looked like Red is heading for the edge of the cliff—and his suspicions are confirmed when Red gets to the edge, and looks down over the other four Lions.

“—nothing a bit of recalibration won’t fix,” Pidge is saying, before Green Lion looks up at Keith and Red and saying wholeheartedly: “Thank you, Red! I think he just wanted some data for me,” Pidge muses, as Green Lion shivers excitedly in the way Pidge does. Red’s response is to send a low purr to all of them, and Keith doesn’t need a mental bond to tell him that everyone warms to the feeling. The Lions do that sometimes, when they’re pleased, or in Red’s case, successful in embarrassing its Paladin.

“Are you done?” Keith grumbles, fiddling with the controls. In response, Red physically thrums in amusement and crouches down, as if to jump off the cliff.

And in that moment, Keith understands with ringing clarity how cat owners feel when their cats look them dead in the eye before knocking expensive breakables off high shelves.

“Don’t,” Keith whispers.

Red ignores him.

The Lion pounces off the fifty-meter drop, honest-to-god _somersaults in the air_ over Blue, Green, and Yellow Lions, and lands lithely in front of a stunned Black. Keith swears he can _feel_ Red preening.

He, on the other hand, wants to sink through his Lion and into the ground.

“What was _that_?” Hunk asks.

“A showoff, that’s what,” Lance scoffs, although Keith can’t help but note the awe in his tone.

Still, Keith can’t face any of them right now, especially not the Lion and Paladin right in front of him. “Be right back,” he manages to say, and disconnects his feed before any of them can say anything.

If Keith were less preoccupied, or perhaps if he had stayed longer, he would’ve noticed the stunned silence from the Black Lion and its Paladin. But as it is, Hunk and Lance and Pidge continue to bicker good-naturedly over Keith’s disconnection and Shiro’s silence.

Shiro, for his part, is genuinely trying to participate in the conversation, but something about how the Red Lion had landed almost _pointedly_ right in front of him demands his full attention. He tries to phrase this as a question to Black Lion, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t do it coherently enough and it just parsed as “ _…???_ ” to the Lion.

To its credit, the Black Lion only sighs, which isn’t much of an answer, but Shiro finds it a comfort anyway.

\--

Keith storms into Red Lion’s hangar that night, leaving no room for doubt about his residual feelings from this afternoon. He strides in front of it and looks up at the Lion, willing the pounding in his temples to recede. Through his rage he feels a primal validation that his rebelliousness and hot-bloodedness had solidified his place as the Red Paladin—instead of turned him away at the slightest sign of trouble, like the Garrison had.

Then he realizes what Red is trying to do, and shakes his head. “Don’t you sweet-talk me,” he mutters to the immobile Lion. “You know what I’m here for.”

The Lion shifts—Keith moves backward instinctively before he sees it draw back its head, its legs bending as it sits down like an actual cat. It might have waved its tail, Keith’s not sure, too busy gaping at, well, the rest of it.

“Don’t try to be cute, either,” Keith says, though with much less venom this time, eyeing Red apprehensively. “That stunt over the cliff—showing off for Shiro—”

The cat-feeling settles once more around his shoulders. Red settles down similarly in front of him, as if to make itself comfortable, and Keith doesn’t feel any guilt from it at all.

 _I thought you would like that,_ Red says. The cat around his shoulders curls into his cheek, and it feels so real that Keith has to raise a hand to confirm that there’s nothing there.

He moves his hand from his cheek to run through his hair, momentarily disarmed. “I mean… thanks, but that’s not gonna…” He trails off, but Red looks at him patiently. Keith sighs; when did his Lion become so invested in his nonexistent love life? “It’s... that’s not happening!”

He winces when he realizes that it’s pretty much an admission of what he denied just yesterday; but, he figures, Red obviously already knew about Shiro. At this point denial felt pointless and a little bit childish.

_Yes. Pretty much._

Keith knows defeat when he sees it, so he elects to shut up. Red Lion remains settled, but he feels it nudging him gently, as if saying, _will you tell me more?_

Keith blinks up at his Lion. “About… about Shiro?”

How would he even phrase it? He’s never been much for talking, much less in depth discussions about _feelings_ —even now, he still mentally facepalms whenever he breaches the topic. How does he phrase how he and Shiro had met, back at the Garrison? How he doesn't even remember how Shiro became part of his life, how gradual it had been? How he’d felt when the Kerberos team was announced? How things are _different_ now? How no one knows what Shiro went through with the Galra, not even Shiro himself, but the effects are subtle to everyone except for Keith?

How does he phrase how it’s not love, not quite (Keith still isn’t sure if he believes in that shit), but it’s not just a crush either, and it’s absolutely, probably, hopefully not platonic—

 _I got it,_ Red interrupts his ramblings, voiceless. Keith fights back a blush—he should’ve known Red was paying attention to his thoughts; it’s why they did this in the first place. Still, he’s embarrassingly glad to have his feelings out in the open, a long-ignored part of him seeing sunlight for the first time.

Remembering something, he adds, “Oh, and, he’s—way older than me.” Keith winces; this, at least, is easy to put into words. “I’m not sure of the exact age, but, uh. He outranks me, too—he was an officer while I was a cadet at the Garrison. It’s—weird. And, um, against the rules?” He’s painfully aware of how much he stutters; he rubs the back of his head in abject embarrassment, realizing who he was talking to. “Uh, sorry, I’m not sure how to explain that better to a sentient robotic space lion.”

He hasn’t thought about him and Shiro—there hasn’t been time to, not between saving the world as a fledgling Voltron team and everything in between. It’s… therapeutic, he decides grudgingly, as he feels Red’s happiness—not smugness, not teasing, just pure happiness—that his Paladin shared so much with him, although it did come after embarrassing him in front of Shiro himself.

Keith lets out a breath, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh, and walks forward to brush his fingers against Red’s muzzle.

Red only purrs against him, and he imagines feeling it rumble from where it’s curled up around his shoulders. He takes that to mean it understands.

“So that's that,” Keith says, unsure what else to say, letting his forehead thunk against Red. “Just, if ever—” he huffs, the cool metal of Red’s muzzle amplified by his burning face, “—now’s not the time, alright?”

Red moves its head forward to nudge him, almost knocking him off balance, forcing a surprised laugh from him as he holds on tight.

“ _Okay,_ ” Keith straightens up, looking Red dead in the eye, or at least as much as he could, standing where he is. “So now you know. Now what? You gonna keep throwing me at Shiro until something happens?” he says drily, smirking at his Lion.

A low sound comes from Red, somewhere between a purr and a growl, and Keith feels his smirk soften into a smile. “Just to be clear, I don’t want that, okay? I don’t know what I’m doing, but neither do you,” he scolds, although it comes out with no real heat. As if in stark contrast, his face still feels hot, so he lays his face against the metal of Red’s muzzle once more.

And this is fine, he thinks, vividly aware of the fact that another sentient being is aware of his feelings. He’s always figured he was going to carry this secret to the grave. Now that Red Lion knows, though—

Keith thinks back to how happy Red had been when he’d shared so much of his feelings. If he’s being honest with himself, he knew since then that that was all Red had wanted: for Keith to trust it.  And Red would know how much that meant to Keith, as well as what it would mean if he broke that trust.

Red Lion lets out a sound that almost sounded like a sigh of exasperation, as though tired of Keith thinking that it would ever betray him. The sound was so human, like something he would’ve heard from one of the other Paladins, that Keith chuckles, his warm breath splaying over the metal, and imagines that tiny bit of humanity seeping through to Red.

\--

“—now’s not the time, alright?”

As amusing and attention-grabbing as Red finds its Paladin slumping over on its nose like an errant cub, it’s impossible to ignore the silent movement of the hangar door as it slides open. The Black Paladin— _Shiro_ , the part of it closest to Keith insists—stands in the doorway with a surprised look on his face. Red nudges its Paladin with its nose, hoping to catch his attention.

But Keith only lets out a happy-sounding laugh and clings tighter. Past his shoulder, Red sees Shiro’s face flush red, creeping from the neck up, and it’s reminded of how Keith does the same when he thought of Shiro sometimes. Red vows to observe the humans some more for a possible explanation for this phenomenon—maybe it could ask Green.

“Okay, so now you know. Now what?” Keith continues, oblivious. “You gonna keep throwing me at Shiro until something happens?”

Helplessly Red looks at Shiro—some part of Red wants to point him out, but it mostly wants Keith to notice Shiro for himself. Red settles for growling in response.

“Just to be clear, I don’t want that, okay?” Keith says, a halfhearted attempt at telling it off. Red takes a moment to congratulate itself on how it’s currently doing _no more of that_ so hard that it was doing the opposite, so much so that if Keith ever finds out about this Red will insist that they’re even for the stunt it pulled during training. Not that he’ll ever find out. Still clueless, Keith mumbles into its muzzle, “I don’t know what I’m doing, but neither do you.”

And Red adores Keith, adores this impromptu cuddle from its usually non-tactile Paladin, it really does—but in that moment it just wants Keith to turn around as Shiro quietly backs out of the hangar.

Keith’s thoughts slip into a line of thought about trust and secrecy, which Red listens to with the minimal amount of wincing, but it can’t help but sigh when the thoughts ebb. Keith laughs against him, warm and happy, and at the end of the day, that’s all Red really wants.

 

 

**iii. probably**

Shiro rushes away from the Red Lion’s hangar, summoning every ounce of his being to focus on stealth, to get away as fast as possible without detection. This, of course, proves a near-impossible task, what with Keith’s words still bouncing around in his head.

_You gonna keep throwing me at Shiro until something happens?_

His brain quietly short-circuits as he promptly walks into a wall.

Shiro rubs his forehead where it hit the wall, curses all the events that have led up to this moment, and continues striding through the Castle. He’d gone to the Red hangar to see if there was something wrong with Red Lion and/or Keith—Keith had arrived and left dinner so early that there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was off to scold Red, after what had happened in training. Shiro had eaten a little faster and decided to see if he could help, to see if his struggle with Black Lion could be of any use to Keith.

But now, Shiro has the answer: Red had been acting out at training because it was _teasing Keith_. Had showed off, landed in front of him and Black, all without Keith’s consent—now that he thinks about it, Keith would have watched from the cockpit in abject horror, his cheeks dusted pink, unable to stop Red.

It’s so light, so juvenile, especially compared to what his problem with Black Lion had been. Red had been teasing Keith about him like another teenager would have—like Lance or Pidge would have.

Shiro stops walking, and looks up at where his feet have taken him: the access to Black Lion’s hangar.

He blinks, and walks inside.

Black Lion looms over the hangar as he walks into it, impassive. Black easily towers over the other Lions, but especially Red. Seeing the two Lions in quick succession emphasizes to Shiro his position as the Black Paladin, the leader of Voltron.

The Lion remains motionless but Shiro feels it awaken, looking down at him serenely.

“Sorry if I woke you,” Shiro says, trying to smile. It’s then that Shiro realizes that if Red knew about Keith’s feelings, Black would certainly know about his. Black knows things more consequential, more _embedded_ in Shiro’s psyche than this half-forgotten affection for a cadet with shorter hair and no light in his eyes except for when he was in a simulator, flying missions that were supposed to be locked at his year level.

It doesn’t help that his head is practically pounding with this affection at the moment, and looking up at the Black Lion, Shiro knows there’s no hiding from either his feelings or his Lion.

Shiro barely stops himself from apologizing again. “It’s—yeah. I just overheard a conversation between Red and Keith. Not, not on purpose though! I swear I just wanted to help, I thought they fought or something after training today.”

Black Lion politely doesn’t react to his ramblings, and for that Shiro is thankful. Instead it just overlooks all that and says, _I approve of him,_ which is, honestly, a lot more embarrassing for Shiro.

“What?” he says sharply, voice a little higher than intended. “You approve… of Keith?” Heat floods his face as he considers the implications of that. “I’m—we’re not—”

  _I know,_ Black says simply. Shiro feels it recall an emotion he’d felt just minutes earlier: the weight of being the Black Paladin, Guardian of the Sky, Captain of Voltron. _You have more pressing matters to worry about._

And Shiro knows it’s not scolding him. It’s a simple reminder of who he is, what he’s here for, and so he doesn’t feel chastised. That being said, he can’t help but feel like he should be embarrassed about something.

 _Besides,_ Black Lion continues, capturing Shiro’s attention. _It’s not like either of you will do anything._

Shiro pouts before he can help it, halfheartedly indignant as he recognizes the knowing tone in Black Lion’s thoughts.

 _You’re pining,_ Black says matter-of-factly, and Shiro remembers the time Matt had said those exact words to him, all those years back at the Garrison, about that same goddamn person.

“Matt would like you,” is all he says, turning away from his Lion to hide his face.

 

 

 **iv.** **absolutely**

Despite all odds, life in the Castle of Lions continues as normal. Keith and Shiro continue to spar when they happen to run into each other at the gym. Hunk continues his quest to replicate Earth food with all the weird substances Coran acquires for them. Pidge polishes the positioning globe until it becomes a staple in their HUDs, and Lance continues to be oblivious to things that everyone else has already seen.

All five of them are in the lounge one night after training, strewn over every available horizontal surface after a grueling exercise in which Coran insisted they familiarize themselves with manually repairing common malfunctions within their Lions. This had involved a lot of climbing up and down their Lions, which didn’t sound like such a hard task until they were painfully reminded of how enormous their Lions are.

Bored but unwilling to move, Lance begins to fiddle with Pidge’s socked feet, which had been thrown over his legs after Pidge settled his upper body on Shiro’s lap. Pidge kicks at him, and Lance groans in pain.

Shiro laughs, taking his hand from where he’d been playing with Pidge’s hair to slide it under and lift his head from his lap, moving to stand. “Alright, you babies. I’ll go get some hot water packs for your muscles, how’s that sound?”

“How are you not dying right now,” Hunk says, half into the couch cushions, where he’s lying facedown, looking ready to become a permanent part of the upholstery.

“Constant exercise,” Shiro replies without missing a beat, right as Keith disentangles his legs from Hunk’s and puts down his tablet.

“I’ll go with you,” Keith says, standing smoothly and smirking at Lance, “since I, too, am not in pain.”

Lance would argue, but taking a breath to yell overexerts the muscles on his back. Pidge laughs languidly, not even looking up at him. “Just drop it, Lance.”

The last thing the three Paladins on the couch hear from Shiro and Keith as they leave is Shiro quietly saying, “Bully,” to which Keith scoffs. Their footsteps fade from the hallway steadily.

“They’re so cute,” Hunk murmurs to no one in particular, face still smushed to the couch. Pidge hums in agreement.

Lance sits up, wincing at the pain that shoots through his back. “What?”

“Keith and Shiro?” Pidge says, like it was obvious. He throws an arm behind his head to eye Lance apprehensively. “Oh, come on, dude, you must have seen this.”

“To be fair, he didn’t know you were a girl either,” Hunk supplies from across the room, while Lance sputters.

“Yeah, well,” Pidge waves an arm dismissively, “I was _trying_ to pass as a boy. And liked it!” he adds, almost as an afterthought. “Anyway, really, Lance? It’s hard to look at Keith when he looks at Shiro, like you’ll sear himself through the heat of his gaze.”

Hunk snorts with laughter. “And Shiro’s like, the only person who gets away with hugging Keith. Believe me, I have _tried_.”

Pidge looks across at him. “You tried to hug Keith?”

“What!” Hunk says defensively. “You gotta admit he looks like he needs a hug, like, 65 percent of the time. Anyway, the point is, Shiro touches him all the time—” Lance blanches, “—okay, obviously, I don’t mean like _that_ , but now that I think about it, who knows?”

Lance manages to regain control of his jaw. “Wait, waitwaitwait wait,” he sputters, “Let’s back _way_ the fuck up. Keith has _feelings?_ ”

“Yes, I do,” says a dry voice, and Lance looks up to a hot water bottle smacking him in the face. “Right now, I am feeling incredibly disappointed in you.”

“Shut up,” Lance says, transferring the hot water bottle to hold it against his back, while Shiro follows Keith in and hands one over to Pidge. He wisely decides not to say the next thought in his head, which is, _you sound like Shiro._

“Keith has feelings,” Shiro volunteers helpfully, sitting back down at Pidge’s head, who happily resettles onto Shiro’s lap. “Annoyed and bored.”

“Offended,” Keith adds, and Lance is suddenly, painfully aware of the sappy smile on Keith’s face, even as he glares at Shiro. From their responses, at least it seemed like they didn’t hear the more sensitive part of their conversation, so there’s that. Pidge adjusts his legs on his lap, and Lance looks to his face to see him smirking.

 

 

 **v.** **epilogue**

Red Lion catches Black early before the other Lions settle into the communal meld once more, after their next mission, but it’s forestalled by Black turning to him with a gravitas that makes it shut up.

 _Yes, Shiro knows,_ is all Black says, long-suffering.

Red smiles to itself.

**Author's Note:**

> unofficial old married couple sheith is my jam <3 red and black proceed to roll their eyes at each other on every mission ever
> 
> hmu @ [bio-at](http://bio-at.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


End file.
